Unfortunately as I have bipolar, anti-depressants tend to flip us sorts manic. There's a real big school of thought going on out there that people with bipolar should not be prescribed anti-depressants at all, as they induce rapid cycling & mix states mood episodes, which are often hard to treat, and it's better to use more mood stabilisers or Lamictal.

It took them decades to figure that out. After doing life mapping of people with bipolar, they found that those treated with anti-depressants had many more acute mood episodes over their lives than those who didn't. Being prescribed them just once had a noticeable effect. While they fixed the patient's acute depression pretty quick smart, the long term effects made the short-term benefits questionable.

Many psychs still prescribe them to people with bipolar, as they weigh up the long term effects against the risk of suicide. My doctor's one of them. Why he wants to prescribe them to me I don't know, as suicide isn't my thing, really.

I tend to knock back anti-depressants these days. My blue periods tend to disappear on their own.

Prior to that I had been composing music, and programming for a long time, and found that when I did drugs it made music so much more fun to write (Electronic music and flash programming without going into that too much).

Anyhoo, Suboxone changed my life however I had created a "neuro-association" to composing music, and pulling the trigger on my endorphin and serotonin glands. The subs really didn't "Move the spirit" as it were.

I was still happy that I had my life back, and since programming was my job I could still do that... Had to put food on the table.

To get to my point over the last year I had hit the "Suboxone ceiling", I had become depressed and even relapsed a few times.

I was so upset that suboxone was no longer doing it for me.

I couldn't get up in the morning and was experiencing P.A.W.S. (Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome) AND I WAS STILL ON THE SUBS...

I started playing with my dosage and found if I took a sub at night, I woke up and was able to move!

I also started crushing a suboxone 1 quarter at a time putting it under my tongue sitting for 15 minutes, and spitting it out so that my liver wouldn't metabolize the naloxone (or sebutex I'm not a doc but u get the point).

I would repeat this process throughout the day instead of taking a whole sub in the morning, and at lunch.

I worked VERY well, but I still get a bit depressed now and then so this friday I'm going to try an antidepressant along with my subs.

Sorry I was so long winded, I thank you all, and this post has been very helpful to me over the last year.

Hi eugolxoV and welcome to the forum. So did you drop your dosage or are you taking the same dosage just throughout the day? What I'd say you are doing by taking it whenever you feel like it is feeding your addictive behavior. You're popping something when you feel you need some sort of "boost", am I right? Aren't you picking and choosing when to take it?

As for spitting out after it dissolving, that's fine. Many people do that in order to lessen the amount of naloxone you get. (Subutex is the just buprenorphine without the naloxone.)

As for experiencing PAWS, that is unlikely. That only happens when you have zero opiates in your system and haven't had any in awhile.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding and in that case, perhaps you can clarify what you are doing.

Again, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined and I hope you stick around.

_________________-As I have grown older, I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

The thing is this...Suboxone has a mean half-life of 37 hours. So there's no way that you need to split 16 mg into quarters and dose EIGHT times a day! That's more than a pain patient doses in a day. (Most pain patients don't even dose more than 3 times a day.) Suboxone actually HAS that long of a half life specifically SO we don't need to dose more than once per day. Consider WHEN you are dosing and why you choose those times in your day.

You could have easily dropped your dose from 24 mg to 16 mg with probably no withdrawals anyway. Both doses are well above the ceiling of ~4 mg. I dose for pain and take either 16 or 24 mg per day depending on my pain and I never have w/d from only taking 16.

Just please look deep at your motives, that's all I'm saying. I mean no offense whatsoever. I hope you understand that.

_________________-As I have grown older, I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

So far I'm doing well with the new method of crushing my subs in quarters and Disolving them throughout the day and the last quarter of the day at bedtime, with some melatonin to help me sleep, the next night a benadryl, the next night an ambien, as to not get addicted or create a tolerance to any of these and disrupt my sleep which is as important as this is a long run on sentence.

It's working well, I saw doc today and got my subs and said I'd like to try cymbalta.

He said "sweet dude rock on" but then my insurance sucked and I have to get a Prior auth to get my antidepressant.

So we'll see how this whole thing pans out.

I appreciate everyone here and if you are having a hard time hang in there.

My motives are these "I wanna get off of the couch, lethargy and depression have caused me to stop working out and I lack the energy to get off of the couch and turn the BLEEPing TV on because suboxone doesn't really work for me anymore."

So I'm sharing my new dosing method because it's working pretty well for me, It doesn't get me high whatsoever.

And I wanted to share it with others who may notice they have hit a point where they are becoming lethargic and depressed as well.

Like I said all good, a lot of your posts in particular have helped me in the past here so don't bother holding back.

I also don't really get mad at bloggers anyway because we are miles apart and all have our own experiences and opinions.

First of all, don't you ever worry about how often you post, OK? That's what we're here for.

Now, try to give yourself time to adjust to the new med. Hopefully after a few more days you'll stabilize. Give it more than a few days before you give up. My husband is one of those people who gives it only a day or two and the minute he feels ANYTHING he blames it on the new med and gives up! It drives me crazy. He could have a headache totally unrelated to his new med but he'll attribute it to it anyway and just stop taking it after only 3 days, never giving it a chance to work.

So please give it time. Good luck and I hope you feel better in a couple of days.

_________________-As I have grown older, I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

Prior to that I had been composing music, and programming for a long time, and found that when I did drugs it made music so much more fun to write (Electronic music and flash programming without going into that too much).

Anyhoo, Suboxone changed my life however I had created a "neuro-association" to composing music, and pulling the trigger on my endorphin and serotonin glands. The subs really didn't "Move the spirit" as it were.

I was still happy that I had my life back, and since programming was my job I could still do that... Had to put food on the table.

Vox

We have something in common re the music! I was doing electronic music / composition for a long time... and drugs came along in that package. Seems that scene is inundated with drugs. And even though opioids are frowned on, where I'm from there are some who dropped out of that scene because they crossed into the heroin world.

I had a 'neuro association' with amphetamines and writing music for a long time, until they scrambled my concentration to the point where I'd spend 36 hours tweaking a 5 second sample. It took a while, but I can finally write music again without them. Seems amphetamines were the source of my motivation for a while, and the main thing was that motivation.

Opioids were always counter-creative for me. They numbed me so much I didn't care for creativity. BUT playing improv piano while in mild-withdrawals can be powerful, as it's a real sensitive emotional state. So sub has to a degree numbed my appreciation of music. But a lot less than heroin ever did.

Do you have a concrete diagnosis for your mental health issues? Is it bipolar depression, or unipolar? Bipolar is associated with creativity / creative types. My doctor actually believes all creativity is derived from the bipolar spectrum. Only when a person lies 'too far' down the spectrum does it become an illness.

I've been on Cymbalta maybe 4 times? IMO it's one of the better anti-depressants. As is is an SNRI, it seems to work for people who are resistant to other anti-depressants. I had some issues though - mainly when I was on it, I metabolised my buprenorphine a lot faster. So this may be something to be aware of if you find yourself withdrawing later in the day.

It's weird too. Twice I went off Cymbalta with very little withdrawal. Totally manageable. But the most recent time was ... very intense. It was SNRI withdrawal plus really bad muscle / joint ache, almost like the withdrawal had induced some kinda fibromyalgia. And my mood was cycling like a maniac. I was having cyclothymia and mixed-states depression for maybe a month, which are quite painful states to be in. And it settled back into depression, and I was seriously considering using. My doctor refused to put me back on anti-depressants because he (finally) acknowledged there was a link between me relapsing and being on anti-depressants. So I was on my own.

In the end I went to the pharmacy and grabbed anything I'd read that can help with depression - fish oil, St. John's wort, Inositol. And literally within TWO days my depression eased, and I was ... happy. And I'm no placebo fool either (an ex-junkie knows when he's getting ripped off) ... and it was really remarkable how well they worked. It wasn't that forced amphetamine-ey state of the SNRI's. Rather a completely natural happiness, like before I'd ever gotten ill.

So IF the conventional anti-depressants don't work out, and you're in a bad state, there's no harm in trying what I did. And if it doesn't work, what's the loss? $20?

I have been prescribed almost all SSRIs and SNRIs out there and some other older type antidepressants too, because the psychiatrists are convinced that I need to be on them. I probably work better, function better and take better care of myself when I'm on them, but they also make me feel really crappy. I get huge pupils with almost no iris and ringing ears and muscle cramps and spasms from them, this makes me urge for benzoes or other sedatives, which gets me in trouble.
Since my psychiatrists are all certain that I need to be on some antidepressant, I can select the one which has the least bad side effects. For me there are two that have lesser side effects than others: escitalopram (Cipralex in Europe, Lexapro in North America), and duloxetine (Cymbalta). Currently I'm on Cymbalta, this one doesn't give me the jimmy legs to the same extent as most others, and the mental side effects are lesser, it's mostly physical symptoms like very dilated pupils, cramps, hard to swallow liquids, skin changes, constant boner, but almost impossible to ejaculate.
Anyway it seems to make me more productive and more responsible and less messy, and that's what they want to see in a patient. I don't "feel" any better at all, my anxiety is if anything worse, and I can't sleep much, but at least I look good and keep my home tidy and can keep a job better. It's really not very different from speed in me. My contact person at the drug clinic where I go every day to pick up my suboxone asks me every day if I am really really sure I haven't taken something because surely not only an SNRI can cause such big pupils, but they can. I look away if there are police in the city because the police here can request that you follow them to the station and take a drug test if you have big pupils.

But at least it makes me look good and makes me more productive, that's what really matters in life I guess.

Your contact person at the clinic should take the same two minutes I just did to look up antidepressants and dilated pupils. She'd find out that what you're saying is indeed true. I hadn't heard of it so I looked it up myself. Here's a simple wiki article on dilated pupils. If one looks under the subheading of drugs, it explains how serotonin based meds can affect the pupils, too. And it explains why. For a wiki article, it's interesting, albeit brief.

Unfortunately, when it comes to antidepressants, it's always trial and error for all of us. We all have to try each one until we find the right one that works for us. It's the only way to find the right one. I'm sorry that you're having such a hard time, more so than most of us.

I hope you can find something better soon. Good luck.

_________________-As I have grown older, I've learned that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everyone off is a piece of cake.

I've been on suboxone for a year and a half. Started at 30mg a day!
I had to to overcome the oxycodone dose I was taking.
I'm now down to 5 !!!
It CAN be done. It seems to get easier actually.
when I started, I would reduce by 2mg a month. Now I reduce 1mg per month.

(BY The Way... even though Sub has a 37 hour half life, it's not as simple as you think. My doc doses all his patients at 3 a day and it REALLY smoothes things out big time!)

I've had LOTS of side effects too.
There are 2 that are the worst:

- Depression (negative thoughts)
- Lack of testosterone and all the effects that brings.

I take SAM-e for depression, which works most of the time. My family doc gave me the common antidepressants, and the Sub reacted to them all. I couldn't take any of them. This has happened to MANY different meds I've taken while taking Sub. Sub reacts with lots of meds. It's crazy.

I too have lethargy, sleep too long, lack energy, weight loss, have NO interest in sex (which goes against my genetics BIG TIME! LOL). etc. etc.
Then I read on a Sub forum that it wipes out testosterone.... finally, an answer to all the above.
I've started to take DHEA, but I can tell you it wipes most of that out too! I have to take 6 - 25mg pills a day.

As I've reduced, desire has come back a tiny bit. But.... the depression (which is Sub induced negative thoughts) is getting worse! I've read that same statement from other forums.
WHAT THE HECK IS THAT? Getting WORSE when the dose is LOWERED? That's bad news!!!!

I could sure use some help finding a solution to this issue besides SAM-e, which hurts my guts sometimes (probably made worse due to the Sub also.) Again, a year ago, when my dose was high, I had a terrible reaction and could not take most common anti depressants, which I blame Sub for.

PS - I take the film. It works better than the tablet. I need less. I've learned NOT to swallow the spit after I'm done. It tears my stomach up when I do, and I get no benefit from it. I did that with the pill too. It helps my guts a LOT !

Have you tried 5-HTP? It is a precursor to serotonin that crosses the blood-brain barrier easily. It's also quite psychoactive (I've found). It has helped my blues a lot.

The fact that your depression is getting worse with your dose reduction does make sense in a way. Depression and anxiety is a common symptom of opioid withdrawal - moreso I've found with buprenorphine. It's possible that now you're sitting on a dose below what you need, you are getting some of those symptoms kicking in around the edges? At least, that's what I've found when I go under 10mg, which seems to be my level.

The film doesn't "work better" as such, but you do absorb more buprenorphine. However, you also get more buprenorphine / naloxone related side-effects with the film because you absorb more of the drugs, and you also end up more dependent, because you are taking a higher dose. All it basically works out is ... 10mg of the tablets is worth 8mg of the film. So if you switch from 8mg film to 8mg tablet, you'll be having the side-effect levels of taking around 6mg of the film. Make sense?

Have you tried 5-HTP? It is a precursor to serotonin that crosses the blood-brain barrier easily. It's also quite psychoactive (I've found). It has helped my blues a lot.

The fact that your depression is getting worse with your dose reduction does make sense in a way. Depression and anxiety is a common symptom of opioid withdrawal - moreso I've found with buprenorphine. It's possible that now you're sitting on a dose below what you need, you are getting some of those symptoms kicking in around the edges? At least, that's what I've found when I go under 10mg, which seems to be my level.

The film doesn't "work better" as such, but you do absorb more buprenorphine. However, you also get more buprenorphine / naloxone related side-effects with the film because you absorb more of the drugs, and you also end up more dependent, because you are taking a higher dose. All it basically works out is ... 10mg of the tablets is worth 8mg of the film. So if you switch from 8mg film to 8mg tablet, you'll be having the side-effect levels of taking around 6mg of the film. Make sense?

Makes LOTS of sense. That is exactly what happened to me! My sub doc isn't the best. I've had to walk the path virtually alone. I noticed that I was getting LOTS more dose with film even though he had said NOTHING... weird. So, I reduced on my own right away.

I've looked at 5-HTP but never tried it. Have you or anyone else here taken it that can comment on it one way or another?
Side effects too please.

PS - The Sam-e works pretty well. It helps LOTS keeping positive. I have to take it every 4 hours though and it can give small intestine cramps, which is where it dissolves (enteric). If 5-HTP works better I will be happy to try it.

By the way, my body continues to like the reduction in dose. I do a 1mg reduction once a month. It can take 2 weeks to resettle. Once it does, it's obvious to me that it has. I let it stay for 2 weeks and then go at it again.

5-HTP ... there are very few side effects. The only one I've really had is a bit of drowsyness (which is why a lot of people take it actually). I like to take it an hour before I go to bed, because it gives me a bit of energy straight after I have it, but after a little while longer I get really tired. Weird I know.

I found when I took it with SAMe, I got REALLY bad indigestion, so I get the feeling 5-HTP plus SAMe = even worse stomach ache. I was taking ViriLife naturals SAMe ... don't know if that's just a bad brand?

But I have had SAMe before, and I do find 5-HTP to have more of an effect.

I have been taking Remeron daily for the last 9 months or so and it has made a drastic change in my life. I was semi underweight when I started on it and it has helped me put on some needed pounds and my sleep is much better. I recently tried adding Celexa to it to see if that helped but I do fine with just the Remeron. The Celexa was turning my skin all pink and making me itch like mad. I don't know if it was an allergic reaction or what it was. I would try Lexapro but I don't believe there is a generic for that. Anyways I'm glad it works for you hatmaker and I just wanted to put my experience in here.

Lexapro generic became available last month, but it is still over 100 dollars/month.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum